'Bones' Season 9 to end with a cliffhanger: What could stop a Season 10?

Even on Fridays,
"Bones" cannot be stopped. The show's producers are so confident in their series, in fact, that there are plans to end Season 9 with a cliffhanger that will roll into a Season 10 in the fall of 2014.

What could possibly stop "Bones" now?

Having moved to Fridays for the final episodes of its fall run, "Bones " managed to hang on to most of its Monday audience. The show has won the 8 p.m. slot for FOX on Fridays and thus looks to be a good bet for renewal. "We're going out on a pretty big cliffhanger," executive producer
Stephen Nathan told
TVLine in a recent interview. "It will change, at least temporarily, the landscape of the show. It really will be a very big shift in how Booth and Brennan will be dealing with crimes in the future."

Nathan also offered assurances that there are plans to switch the Season 9 finale to a series finale, should it come to that.

But why would it come to that? Here are the reasons "Bones" could stop before Season 10:

Precipitous ratings drops are not impossible. "Bones" counts as a success for FOX now, but one slip and newer shows are ready to take is place.

Stars could move on. There have been rumors for years that David Boreanaz has plans to leave at some point. It's hard to imagine "Bones" continuing without one or both of its stars.

The vagaries of network decision-making could come into play. Why do networks make the choices they do? No one seems to have much of an explanation for that.

Although it seems unlikely at this point, the plot could reach a satisfying conclusion and end.

"Bones" will return with new episodes on Fridays at 8 p.m. this winter.